


to the person who will raise my daughter

by daskey



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-13
Updated: 2018-09-13
Packaged: 2019-07-11 19:20:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15978779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daskey/pseuds/daskey
Summary: motherverb1. bring up (a child) with care and affection."the art of mothering"1.1 look after (someone) kindly and protectively, sometimes excessively so.2. (dated) give birth to.





	to the person who will raise my daughter

_ To the person who will raise my daughter when I'm gone,  I wish you all the best, and hope you know what a wonderful challenge you're taking on.  _

Realistically, it was just a book, but certain things held weight to them in a way that almost defied logic. Pages bound together in a moleskine journal, the only defining feature on the outside was a single yellow sticker that had faded and grown soft with age. A smiling face. 

The book felt heavy in her hands as she closed it, tucked it away for safekeeping in the top drawer of her bedside table.

She'd taken on a burden that she'd never imagined would be her own. She wasn't coming home to an empty apartment, to a half-filled closet, to blank spaces where pictures used to hang. Instead, she now had a child on her hands. A child who had been just on the cusp of becoming a teenager when the woman who had raised her for twelve years had been torn from her in the cruellest of ways. 

It had been a long journey for Sam in the end. They'd had time to prepare for it, but that didn't make it any less difficult. Sam had left before Alex could have a chance to tell her the truth about her feelings, before she'd had a chance to see her daughter grow up. 

She thought it was almost ironic, that the day that they  _ finally  _ got some sunshine was that day of all days. The rain that had hounded the city for a week had ceased. The window was open, and the curtains billowed out with a light breeze. 

_ She's smart, but she's young. She will need your help, even if she says she doesn't. Don't hound her - but be ready to lend a hand.  _

Over time, she grieved, but grief wasn't a twenty-four-seven job. It was something that happened in fits and started and ended with her burnt out and in need of something -- anything -- to distract her.  

Alex had loved Sam. She couldn't fathom what it was like for Ruby, couldn't tell her that she had loved Sam, too, because for all the girl had known, Alex and Sam had been friends. She could only be there with a movie, with ice cream, a cup of tea, a box of tissues and a listening ear. 

She took Ruby to her soccer games. She learned quickly that while she preferred to simply be dropped off at training, she wanted Alex to come to her games. So Alex took her, sat through the games. With time, Alex grew to like it, grew to cherish those moments where Ruby's smile was genuine. 

_ She will not eat tofu no matter what. No amount of dressing or blending or mixing or chopping will make it any more appealing to her.  _

There were moments of laughter, of lightness, which broke through the gloom like unexpected rays of sunshine spearing through dark clouds on stormy days. Like flowers that grew through sidewalk cracks, those little moments within the first few months made it bearable. 

Sam's words did, too. 

Those pages were filled with  _ her _ . Every page, written in her handwriting, which changed over the years. The start of the book was a chaotic scrawl done in a mess of different colours and scribbled out words. As she reached the middle and it became clearer, more precise. Sam was coming into herself, understanding what it meant to be a mother. 

Ruby's face twisted into a grimace as Alex dropped a takeout container in front of her. 

"Don't worry. No tofu." She said, and Ruby nearly tore the container open in her haste to get to the food within. 

Alex began to smile as she looked at the ravenous teenager across from her as she ate. With Sam's words with her, she began to feel like she was understanding what it meant as well, in her own strange way. 

_ To the person who will raise my daughter; she's a handful and a half, and she'll always try to challenge you. Always.  _

_ She will make mistakes. She will get hurt, that's just how life is.  You can't protect her from everything, but you can make sure you're there to help pick her back up afterwards.  _

The years didn't make it easier to tell her no. At fifteen, Ruby was strong, independent, sure of herself, and fierce. A combination which was both something to be proud of and something to fear. Alex was in the business of protecting people. It was her  _ job _ . If she couldn't protect the person that meant the most to her, what would that make her?

"No, Ruby!" Her voice was harsh, and it cut through the air like a knife. "I said no, and that's final." 

The girl clenched her hands into tight fists, silvery tear tracks running down her face. It was disconcerting, how much she looked like  _ her  _ when she was angry. Alex could see a ghost within the furrow of her brow, the untamed, raw emotion in her eyes. It almost threw her off.

"It's not safe. There will be a bunch of people that you don't know, who will probably be drinking, and you're too young to be around them. Drunk people do stupid things, drunk kids are even worse-" 

"Ugh, I hate you! You never let me do anything!" 

"Ruby, listen to me, kid-" The girl started to storm away, and Alex followed after her, reached to grab her arm to bring her back but Ruby shrugged her off and swivelled around with that familiar unbridled fury in her eyes, her teeth bared as she shouted at Alex, even as her eyes were red and glistening with tears.

"You're not my mom! You'll  _ never  _ be her, so stop trying to act like it!" 

Breaking wasn't just something that happened overnight. Every part of her had broken on the day Sam died, had shattered and splintered, but now it felt like even the parts of herself that she'd managed to scrounge together were crumbling in her hands. 

The walls quaked in the aftermath. The sound of the door slamming echoed in the silence of the narrow hallway, repeating over and over again in her mind. 

She was stronger than this. She could deal with it. She brought her hands up to wipe at the tears on her cheeks, ignoring the burning in the back of her throat as she sank to the floor beside Ruby's door. 

She rested her head against the wall. Brought her knees up in front of her. Rested her head on them, and waited for something to happen. 

_ Never let her go to sleep upset. Make sure she knows that you love her.  _

Two knocks. 

A soft call, "Ruby?" 

The door stayed firmly shut. There was silence, stillness. The little sniffling that she'd heard ceased almost immediately. 

"I don't know what I'm doing. I want to keep you safe, but-" She tried the door, it opened unhindered, swung into the blue-walled room. Her words felt heavy, they hung in the space. Ruby didn't turn around. 

"I can tell." She said, her words sharp.  

It was a cruel fact of raising a child; she wanted to say yes to everything, she wanted to let her live a full and happy life, but she didn't want her to get hurt. That desire to protect her, to shield her away from the world so that it could never hurt Ruby the way it had hurt her, it won out over the rest of her sometimes. 

Especially after what had happened to Sam. 

"I can't say yes to everything." 

"I know." 

With that, Ruby peeked over her shoulder, and turned around to face Alex. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her tears had been wiped away. 

"I just... you don't say yes to a lot of things." 

The doubt settled in her mind, Ruby's pout had her thinking over the past few months, the past few  _ years _ . 

"I'm sorry," She was lost here, out of her depth, and her heart sank as she realised she'd been going at it  _ wrong  _ this whole time. "You can't go to this one... but the next one, I'll let you go-" Ruby's face lit up, and Alex was quick to raise her eyebrows. "But you have to do all your homework first, the parents have to be there, and I'm dropping you off and picking you up at the  _ exact _ moment that party finishes, you understand?" 

Ruby gave her a brisk nod in response. "Okay." 

The hug that she gave her melted Alex's heart, just a little. 

"Alex," Ruby started, her voice quiet, and when she glanced down at her she could see her eyes were wide. "I'm sorry. For what I said before. I didn't mean it I was just-" 

Alex hushed her by holding her close, and pouring every part of her into keeping her voice steady as she said, "I know. It's okay. I love you, kid." 

-

Ruby was eighteen and heading off to brighter and better things. Her bags were by the door, stacked on top of each other. She was leaving the nest. 

To read that last page now felt like an acceptance of the end. It felt like  _ truly  _ letting go, because after that, there was no more for her to read. 

Her job wasn't  _ done,  _ Ruby would still need her, as children did. It was a task that never ended, one that she'd taken on knowing that it would have no completion date. 

Over the years, she rationed the pages, reading them one at a time. Reading, and then stopping. A new page every month, then every two months, then she was going for long stretches of time, rereading the same pages over and over and over until she had them committed to memory. As the pages dwindled, she'd slowed down, she'd reached the second last page when Ruby had turned sixteen. 

Her handwriting had reverted to a messy scrawl, like she was rushing to get the words out. She  _ knew  _ why Sam had rushed those last entries. 

She'd been holding on to that final page because that way there had always been one to look forward to. Sam had never left, because she was there for her when she needed her in the pages of that little journal, where she always had one more thing to say. One last little quip, one comment, one page of writing. 

She ran her finger over the corner of the page, feeling the paper bend slightly, and as she brought her finger under it, she steeled herself to flip the page like she was ripping off a bandaid. Her eyes skirted the page, which was unlike the others, there were no decorations or little drawings in the margins, just a simple note, written in the center of the page.

Alex's finger ran across the words, felt the impressions in the paper, and that was when she began to break. The date - the date, she would recognise that date anywhere. 

_ Alex - I only wish we had more time together.  _

"Mom?" 

"Yes-" She quickly wiped at her eyes, but her tears had been seen, Ruby's face fell, and she walked towards the woman sitting folded in on herself, her hand out to offer whatever comfort she could. 

_ Years _ . Years had passed - six years -  _ six years  _ and she hadn't looked at these last few pages because she hadn't wanted to let go, and what was on there but the few words she'd wished she'd heard Sam say to her while she was alive. It was a cruel twist of fate, and as her eyes passed over the letters, and her mind brought back Sam's voice, clear and bright, soft and warm, she realised there was no more. 

Ruby followed her line of sight, and as her eyes fell on the book in Alex's hands, on the words written there in a vaguely familiar handwriting. She understood. 

**Author's Note:**

> A big shout out to Kal (mssirey on tumblr) for being an absolute legend. I wouldn't have posted this without your stellar advice so thanks :) 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
